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Assessing the effect of article processing charges on the geographic diversity of authors using Elsevier’s “Mirror Journal” system

Percentage of first authors that are based in different World Bank Lending Groups. The distribution of diversity scores for parent journals is significantly higher than the diversity score of the mirror journals (red lines) for first authors from low through upper-middle income nations. This indicates the diversity of open-access is under-representative of all publications. The dashed line is the value for N = 975 articles in open access (OA) Mirror journals; histograms are values for 1,000 identically sized collections of non-OA articles from Parent journals (sampled by bootstrapping from N = 34,400 articles). All countries, including the United States and China, are included.

SMITH, MERZ, KSHIRSAGAR – Assessing the effect of article processing charges on the geographic diversity of authors using Elsevier’s “Mirror Journal” system

Audrey C. Smith, Leandra Merz, Jesse B. Borden, Chris K. Gulick, Akhil R. Kshirsagar, Emilio M. Bruna

Article first published online: 4 Feb 2022 in Quantitative Science Studies

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00157

ABSTRACT: Journals publishing open access (OA) articles often require that authors pay article processing charges (APC). Researchers in the Global South often cite APCs as a major financial obstacle to OA publishing, especially in widely recognized or prestigious outlets. Consequently, it has been hypothesized that authors from the Global South will be underrepresented in journals charging APCs. We tested this hypothesis using more than 37,000 articles from Elsevier’s “Mirror journal” system, in which a hybrid “Parent” journal and its Gold OA “Mirror” share editorial boards and standards for acceptance. Most articles were non-OA; 45% of articles had lead authors based in either the United States or China. After correcting for the effect of this dominance and differences in sample size, we found that OA articles published in Parent and Mirror journals had lead authors with similar Geographic Diversity. However, Author Geographic Diversity of OA articles was significantly lower than that of non-OA articles. Most OA articles were written by authors in high-income countries, and there were no articles in Mirror journals by authors in low-income countries. Our results for Elsevier’s Mirror-Parent system are consistent with the hypothesis that APCs are a barrier to OA publication for scientists from the Global South.

Read the full publication at Quantitative Science Studies.